


Memories

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [79]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Future Fic, Post-Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07 Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Echo cuts her hair.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Echo, Echo & Raven Reyes
Series: The 100 Fics [79]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/543928
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> After watching the trailer and spending a lot of time on discord, this came out as a mixture of prompts and speculations.

It is strange, the things that you remember when everything else fades. Like the twitch in Roan's left eye, when he thought something was genuinely amusing. The movement of a horse's canter between her legs or the smell of her room in Nia's Winter Castle.

Even when everything else becomes murky, Echo remembers the feeling of her aunt's fingers in her hair and the whispered voice: "This one is for Azgeda." Echo doesn't remember how old she was, but she can still hear her aunt's smile as she explained, "we tuck it away behind our ear so that nobody can ever take it away - one strand for family, one strand for land, and one strand for the crown, see? Weave them together, and you have a Kru."

Even after so long, even after being banished and seeing her land burn – twice – Echo remembers her aunt's words, her fingers braiding her hair, teaching her how to do it herself.

Bellamy never understood what her clan really was; what it means to belong to Azgeda. He only saw the hurt and harm they did her and hated them for it.

Echo loosens the tie at the end of her braids, combing the knots out with familiar ease.

Her new Kru doesn't have many traditions. It doesn't have land, and it doesn't have a crown. Every strand somehow combined into one. It should be weaker for it. An unbraided rope will snap more easily; it can't carry that much weight.

The things she remembers from Spacekru are strange, too.

She has forgotten why she found algae so appalling, or why she was cold all the time. Instead, she remembers sitting with Murphy in a dark room, staring into the flames of his forbidden fire-bucket. She remembers the curve of Emori's nose as she lay gloriously naked and impossibly drunk on her bed; the glee in Raven's eye every time she got to float outside of the Ring, and Harper's little snorting laugh. But, most of all, she remembers Bellamy's hands, impossibly kind.

Memories can get tainted, though. Every time Echo thinks of the curl of Bellamy's hair, and the splatter of stars across his cheeks, every time she closes her eyes, lost in the memory of his smell or the brightness of his smile, she sees him fall. She sees him dragged away and remembers that she failed him.

She was too slow, and now he is lost.

The knife in her hand belonged to him. Echo made it for him, out of Raven's stash of scrap metal on the Ring. It is unrefined but well balanced, and she wrapped the handle in the soft leather of her old jacket to make the grip more comfortable. She even carved protective symbols on the shaft even though Bellamy didn't believe in Azgedan spirits. It should have kept him safe.

But alas, Bellamy was always a romantic. I'll _come back for this_. The memory of those words hurts worse than any other. She conjures it often but has forgotten the exact feeling of his breath against the shell of her ear, the feeling of his beard against her cheek is fading, too. Echo cannot be sure that she even remembers the exact timbre of his voice.

The blade slices through her hair with ease.

Raven has been telling her to cut it for years now. She may be pleased.

The strands on the sink look like dead animals, discolored brown and gray snakes, maybe. The braid behind Echo's ear resists her effort for a second. Seeing it on the chrome metal makes her sick.

She is Spacekru, who have no land and no crown and are only a tightly knit family. Still, cutting her ties to Azgeda, even if they don't exist anymore, feels like a betrayal. Her ancestors will be ashamed.

Echo makes quick work of the rest of her mane. The small, white room fills with the pungent stench of burning hair. A moment later, the sprinklers rain on her, drenching her blue tunic and plastering the short strands of hair to her forehead.

Raven bursts through the door a second after the drizzle has stopped. She takes a look at the extinguished remains of her tresses and then at her face. She looks older, exhausted but not as frustrated as Echo thought.

"You ok?"

Echo swallows the knot in the back of her throat, grateful to the sprinkler system for hiding her tears.

"Yes. Are we ready yet?"

"I'm prepping the machine. You should suit up."

Echo opens a small cupboard under the sink and retrieves a scratchy old towel to wipe the droplets from her face and hair.

"It looks good," offers Raven awkwardly.

She smiles as the mechanic limps away – her leg has been acting up lately.

In the mirror, her eyes are sunken in, tired. Dark markings dot her brow. Echo isn't sure she likes her new haircut. Shaving one's head is usually a sign of mourning, or, at least, Azgeda saw it as one, and she isn't mourning. She won't until she has a body.

The suit reminds her of the spacesuit Raven used for her spacewalks. It's not as bulky, though, and the helmet fits tightly around her head, which is the reason why Raven had been insisting she cut her hair. She was right, it's more comfortable now, and she doesn't trap her fair on the zipper.

Echo likes the helmet with its strange pattern and the slightly iridescent material. Raven makes sure it's sealed correctly before activating her machine.

"Here we go again."

The controlled anomaly opens with a whoosh, twisting and turning on the small pad it's been forced onto.

"Ok, Echo, do you read me?" The mechanic's voice comes filtered through the suit's com-system. The former spy barely remembers the time when that simple feat of technology freaked her out.

"Loud and clear."

"Alright. Coordinates are set and secure. Ready when you are."

Green mist and a roaring wind stare back at her from the pad. That, too, would have scared her, not so long ago. Sorcery and magic have become science and technology, and now, she too is a wizard capable of traveling like a spirit through time and space. She bears the markings of the anomaly. Soon there will be another line on her body, another sign to mark her efforts.

And maybe her braids tied her to Azgeda, but these brands are a symbol of her clan, a sign of her loyalty to her leader, her lover, and her family.

At the control center, stands Raven, flanked by Emori and Murphy.

Echo will get the rest of her clan back, even if it takes her three hundred years to do it.

The green of the anomaly envelops her; she feels its brand on her skin as her body is flung violently forward, torn into a million different directions. The universe screams around her; Echo doesn't, anymore, the feeling something she's used to by now.

She lands on her feet, on a strange land, on an odd time. Once, she barely remembers, this awed her, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting.


End file.
